Aviator: A Historical Context
by Verdot
Summary: Cid Highwind's story before the game. Ever wonder how he almost was Shinra's first man in space? Features Shera and Palmer. Yes, Palmer.


So, I want to fill this archive of sorts up to fifty stories. That's a nice even number, right?

Suffice to say, this is a story I've been wanting to write since I first played the game. I love backstory, especially ambiguous backstory. And Cid will always hold a very special place in my heart. So he's a short summary of his Life Story.

You think I'm kidding?

---

Cidney Highwind had always been in his father's shadow. It was a family condition, too, as his father was still in the shadow that his father had left him. Maybe it went to show that he would later become the great in the family, as old Grampa Highwind took a liking to young Cid, fashioning him into an apprentice of sorts. Cidney Highwind Sr, as the old man's name was, could never be seen without his grandson in tow.

_"Ciddy? You know why men fly?"_

_"Nope."_

_"'Cause their asses are on fire an' they'll be damned if fuckin' birds outsmart them."_

Gerald Highwind, the man in the middle of these generations, never quite had what it took to make it as a military pilot. He was a decent mechanic, sure, but he lacked something, or maybe had too much bitterness. It was hard to tell. He never spoke much. No vices, except being a chronic workaholic. His wife had strong opinions that she never voiced to him, and Cid and his younger brother were forced to listen to her half baked rambles outside of their father's earshot.

It was a strange family, in essence.

Cid Sr died about the time Cid Jr was old enough to go to flight school. He'd already been practicing around their estate, which really wasn't more than a large field with vehicle parts all over it, scattered about like a dinosaur graveyard. Gerald had sat his son down calmly and explained that he was making the biggest mistake of his life.

_"Why don't ya go to school and become something decent, like a scientist?"_

_"An' be like you? Washed up an' good fer nothin' but workin' on other men's busted up shit?"_

He left early in the morning, and didn't call them again. It was harsh. Maybe a little bratty. But he knew that if he called home, his mother would answer in her awkward voice. And he hated that voice.

It was while he was at flight school that he realized a slight height deficiency and the slight mouth he'd gained from Cid Sr made him a little less than popular with his classmates. Of course, he didn't care about them. And he'd found someone even more pathetic than he was. Someone who looked up to his type of speaking and arrogance. Of course, it was easy to curse a man out to hide the fact your knees were shaking.

But Andrew Palmer didn't really notice that.

They weren't friends, really. Andy was far too disinclined to maintenance, and had that look about him that suggested that he'd be a fat man some day. These were two things that suggested he'd most likely fail flight school. And he was only doing it because he had nothing better to do. Mommy and daddy too busy building his contacts to actually pay attention.

So maybe Cid pitied him a little. And maybe it did feel good to not have to compete with someone for a change.

Of course, in those days, there was a war about, and Cid in his off time got into all sorts of mishaps. He learned pretty quickly a few valuable lessons during that time. First, send Andy into any bar that he'd not yet patroned. Second, to make sure to never play pool with anyone in a blue suit, especially not the tall thin types. And third, just because she looked like a woman on the outside, didn't mean she was one under the skirt. Best to check that before anything progressed.

_"Cid? There's a guy named Crusher who says you owe him money?"_

_"Andy, how many fuckin' times do I hafta tell ya? My name is Andy today and YOURS is Cid!"_

_"Oh, right. Gotcha. I forgot."_

_"Stick to the plan, an' we'll both get out o' this alive."_

Predictably, Andy failed flight school, and got sent to college instead. Cid went off to serve his two years required service and got his ass out of there. Wutaian bars had far too many people that were confusing some of the lessons he'd learned back in Midgar. Damn skirts weren't short enough. Though, after one mission, he was too drunk to care. Flyboys were like that. Too drunk to care.

Cid was drunk in Wutai a lot. So much in fact, that he almost didn't notice he'd gotten promoted.

_"Uh, Captain? You alright?"_

_"Captain! When the HELL did that happen?"_

_"This morning. Were you awake?"_

_"I might have been. Get me some fuckin' aspirin."_

His triumphant return to Midgar had been a little more noisy than he would have liked. Shinra, or whatever the hell was behind all that warmongering, had decided to pay for some proper schooling. Cid Sr had mentioned engineering once, and shit, he already knew the basics. So he went to school. And found that there's was a hell of a lot more to it than taking apart engines and doodling in his notepad. Maybe if he were an art major, but he was no pansy.

No, there was mathematics.

Mathematics was the anemic bitch cousin of all the stuff he'd worked on. Delicate and picky and always whining about theorems. Proofs. And getting up in the front of lecture and drawing perfect diagrams without mathematics did nothing to impress the professors. It did impress a few of the students, the kind that sat dully in the back of class waiting for something to inspire them, their original fire all but burned out. Well, mostly. There were also the quiet ones.

Like Shera MacDowell.

Granted, he didn't know her full name yet. And it would take him years to remember it. She was the background figure in his swirling world of differential equations. The little calm center of peaceful academic relations. The kind that noticed the doodles in the margins of his notes and never said anything. She was actually a bit older than him, working on her doctorate. Rocket scientist. He never quite understood those types.

_"I was, um, listening to..."_

_"Spit it out, I ain't got damn time considerin' my fuckin' aerodynamics professor unloaded all this homework and shit on me."_

_"Tutor?"_

_"Eh? Ya offerin' ta help me? Why?"_

_"Seems like... a good idea?"_

When he finally got a chance to sleep for more than four hours a night and the celebratory drinking and whatnot had cleared, he found himself back with the company that had financed his education to begin with. He ran into Andy again, who was just as disinclined to work as he had been, and a little chubbier. Shera apparently got hired on with him too, and things were happening so fast. He had a crew that was listening to him, he was flying again but really, what all that damned physics and mathematics had done for him was allowed him to create the things he sketched in his off time.

Cid was making planes.

Some people, religious people, get this feeling of rebirth when they give in to their gods. But for Cid, it wasn't rebirth in the early days with the company. Not at all. He'd finally just come alive. He'd yell. He'd get blue in the face describing what he wanted. But it was the making, the doing, the working... his Grampa would have been right there with him, telling the dipshits what was what.

_"I can't fuckin' believe ya! Have ya been tunin' me out this whole damn time! The laminar flow produced by this type of wing will make it fuckin' STALL, as in FALL OUT OF THE SKY ON YER DAMN HEAD when attached to this fuselage! Gods!"_

_"B-but Captain..."_

_"Yanno what you need? TRIGONOMETRY AN' A GOOD ASS KICKIN'."_

_"I'll follow the plans next--"_

_"Now go an' do it right!"_

Shinra was pleased with Cid. He was their son of the moment, their golden boy of aviation. And with such opportunities, with such creations out in the open, he allowed himself to dream.

_"Yanno what, Andy? I've got an idea."_

_"Do I have to talk to Crusher again? Because I would rather not..."_

_"No, dipshit. I jus' figured out another way to one up those fuckin' birds."_

Shera wrote the proposal while he gestured and ranted. Writing was never his forte, but the elaborate drawings, schematics, hell even a watercolor or two were all his. She was the connector, the communicator. Andy had taken up the habit of sitting around his corner of the shop, watching, and he felt enclosed, but not in a suffocating way.

And it worked. They accepted. That was the first and last time Cid wore a suit, too.

The juggernaut of his triumph plowed over a lot of things without him noticing. Like how often Andy would sit and talk with Shera as she worked patiently, or how she would sometimes wince when he yelled. Little things that men of lesser vision would notice. His crew was so devoted, because he was so devoted. Driven. Maybe in those cold stars, he could finally put that damn fire out.

But his prescription was farsighted.

"_SHERA! GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!"_

_"I'm not done yet, Captain."_

_"Oh... fuck."_

Falling required some horizontal velocity; you didn't just fall straight down out of nothing, unless you were hanging by something. And he had been on solid ground. The descent hadn't killed him so much as pissed him off. He was given a choice to stay on with them, but as an underling. Pride was supposed to be after the fall, but shit like that was rhetorical nonsense. He was going to petition for his rightful place.

_"Hey Shera, guess what? They said I might get Cid's old position. I was wondering--"_

_"The Captain will go back to his rightful place, Andy."_

_"But, why would--"_

_"Shera! Where the fuck is that paper!"_

He never really understood politics. And he'd always underestimated Andy. The Palmer family contacts were such that a backwoods nobody didn't stand a chance. It was the first time he hated something more than his father. Hypocrisy. It was a word that English teachers used and he didn't give a damn about. No, this was personal.

She followed him into obscurity. He waited.

_"Captain? Some people are here, they want to borrow the Tiny Bronco."_

_"Tell them ta git the hell out of here."_

_"But..."_

_"Fine, I'll fuckin' tell them off myself."_

He just didn't know what he was waiting for.


End file.
